Does anyone here own a juicer?

The way we grow things and the food science industry are largely to blame. Read some of Michael Pollan and Marion Nestle's books. I found them really enlightening.

My girlfriend grew up in a rural area in Europe and her dad has land all around the village on which he grows all kinds of things. They raise their own chickens for eggs. I'm not a big egg person, but when I was there, I couldn't believe those eggs. Hard boiled, the yolks were a bright orange, not the yellow you see here.

She absolutely loves food, but REAL food, not the crap you find in supermarkets today -- fruit, veggies, you name it, they grow it and they also have things we don't even get here, including a type of plum that is like honey that grows on trees all around the area that blew me away.

When she came here, she couldn't believe how tasteless our produce is. She still constantly complains about it, especially after she visits home and gets spoiled by how good the produce is. Michael Pollan has documented this. It's more complicated than this, but the food industry has bred things to not spoil, and for cosmetic reasons (we get prettier looking fruit, but less nutritious) and have totally screwed things up when it comes to taste and nutrients. I believe the typical Apple today has a third of the iron an apple grown in the 1950s did, for example. That one stuck with me.

When I stayed at my girlfriend's parents home, I couldn't believe how good the food was. They produce 90 percent of what is on the table themselves. And I finally understood what she was talking about. I've experienced it in other places, too, such as when we were in Rome and hit Campo de Fiore, and there were farmers there from the countryside selling tomatoes unlike anything I had ever eaten.

Aside from how supply chain problems and the variations of vegetables they breed now, the other thing has been how our supermarkets have gone from places where they sell food to shelves of edible-like substances that aren't really food. And in the 60s, 70s, 80s, etc. we really screwed up our diets with products that hooked like opium, but which are nutritionally poisonous.

That is why there is a whole generation saying, "I can't eat vegetables." I don't understand how someone can't enjoy a spinach salad or enjoy a meal spinach with garlic and mushrooms in a bit of olive oil, like we did a few nights ago. It is just good.